Let's Face It
Cast & Crew
Sidney Lanfield
Bob Hope
Betty Hutton
Dona Drake
Cully Richards
Eve Arden
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
During World War II, Winnie Potter gets angry at her fiancé, Jerry Walker, when he sneaks sweets to her clients at a fat reducing farm, the strict diet of which includes plenty of milk. Jerry, a private in the Army, has delayed their wedding for eight weeks because he is always getting into trouble. As he is returning to Camp Arthur, three clients of the farm, Cornelia Pigeon, Nancy Collister and Maggie Watson, try to interest him in getting two other soldiers to become their dates for a day. All three women suspect that their husbands are not really away on a fishing trip, but are philandering behind their backs, and decide that making them jealous is the best revenge. Jerry rejects the matrons' offer, and then accidentally crashes his jeep through the canteen wall at the camp. After Sergeant Wiggins tells him that he has to come up with the money to pay off the damages or spend six months on guard duty, Jerry meets with Cornelia, Nancy and Maggie again and agrees to meet them at Cornelia's Southhampton, Long Island, home on Sunday. He then cancels his Sunday wedding plans with Winnie, and arranges with his best buddies, Frankie Burns and Barney Hilliard, to join him on Sunday, intending to pay them twenty dollars out of the $300 the women are to give him. In order to slip out of camp, Jerry fakes a head injury while working on the jeep. Winnie, meanwhile, has figured out that Jerry is not going on special assignment, as he told her, but is having a rendezvous with the matrons. Frankie and Barney, who have been told they are being fixed up with real beauties, are shocked when they meet the matrons, and try to renege on the deal, but Jerry insists they remain. Terrified of any physical contact with the women, the three men become inseparable. Maggie then demands the return of her $50 deposit, which Jerry has already given to Winnie, but she is interrupted when Winnie arrives with Muriel and Jean, Frankie and Barney's girl friends. The angry girl friends break off all relations with the soldiers, who decide that they may as well keep their deal with the matrons. Not long after, the husbands arrive with their dates, who quickly exit after the wives make their presence known. After several arguments, Jerry, Frankie and Barney go to the local nightclub with Maggie, Cornelia and Nancy. Winnie, Muriel, Jean and the husbands decide to do the same, and each group tries to outdo each other in making their mates jealous. When Jerry discovers Sergeant Wiggins at the booth next to his, he pretends that his head injury has caused insanity, which is why he never made it to the Army hospital. Jerry, Frankie and Barney then escape in a rowboat, intending to row across the sound to the camp, but a periscope shoots up through their boat and they are unexpectedly affixed to a German submarine. When the German commander realizes he has three Americans on board, he heads the submarine for open ocean, but Jerry fools him into thinking he is headed for the shore by holding a mirror in front of the periscope lens. The commander turns the submarine around and heads for shore. The submarine crashes on the beach, and the Germans spies are captured. A year later, Jerry is once again in the brig for causing trouble, and his patient wife Winnie bids him a cheerful farewell with their baby son in her arms.
Director
Sidney Lanfield
Cast
Bob Hope
Betty Hutton
Dona Drake
Cully Richards
Eve Arden
Zasu Pitts
Marjorie Weaver
Raymond Walburn
Phyllis Povah
Joe Sawyer
Dave Willock
Nicco And Tanya
Andrew Tombes
Arthur Loft
Grace Hayle
Evelyn Dockson
Kay Linaker
Frederic Nay
George Meader
Joyce Compton
Florence Shirley
Barbara Pepper
Robin Raymond
Phyllis Ruth
Lionel Royce
Emory Parnell
Andria Moreland
Brooke Evans
Don Kerr
Marjorie Deanne
Miriam Franklin
Edward Dew
Bud Geary
Eddie Hall
Eddie Dunn
Angela Wilson
Marie Windsor
Evelyn Frey
Ann Adams
Elinor Troy
Lena Belle
Helena Brinton
Tommye Adams
Barbara Brooks
Ellen Johnson
Debbra Keith
Eleanor Prentiss
Sarah Edwards
Cyril Ring
Harry Hays Morgan
Joel Friend
Fred Giermann
William B. Davidson
Janet Shaw
Eric Alden
Lita Ward
Patti Mccarty
Wanda Mckay
Louise La Planche
Yvonne De Carlo
Jayne Hazard
Julie Gibson
Noel Neill
Hal Rand
Allen Ray
Jerry James
Crew
Sammy Cahn
Lonnie D'orsa
Barney Dean
B. G. Desylva
Robert Emmett Dolan
Hans Dreier
Farciot Edouart
Seymour Felix
Arthur Franklin
Kim Gannon
Hugo Grenzbach
Edith Head
Earl Hedrick
Gordon Jennings
Don Johnson
Fred Kohlmar
Joseph J. Lilley
Lionel Lindon
Ray Moyer
Cole Porter
Jule Styne
Harry Tugend
Paul Weatherwax
Wally Westmore
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of the film was The Cradle Snatchers. According to news items in Los Angeles Times and Variety, when Vinton Freedley produced his musical Let's Face It, he paid Russell Medcraft and Norma Mitchell for the stage rights to their play Cradle Snatchers, due to its similarity to Let's Face It. However, as Twentieth Century-Fox owned the screen rights to Cradle Snatchers, when Freedley sold the rights to Let's Face It to Paramount for $225,000, Fox received $100,000 as payment for their rights to Cradle Snatchers. News items also note that Danny Kaye, who starred in the Broadway musical, was originally intended to appear in the feature film, but was left out of negotiations by Freedley when he closed the deal. Eve Arden created the role of "Maggie Watson" on Broadway.
Hollywood Reporter news items report the following about the production: Paramount studio electrician Alvey Jeffries died during production when he fell from a catwalk, and although Danny Dare was slated to choreograph a dance for Bob Hope and Betty Hutton, only Seymour Felix is credited on the screen for choreography. Some background shots were filmed on location at the Salton Sea, CA. According to modern sources, production on Let's Face It was delayed so that Hope could continue his entertainment tour of Army camps in Alaska. Other films based on Medcraft and Mitchell's play are Fox's 1927 film The Cradle Snatchers, directed by Howard Hawks and starring Louise Fazenda and J. Farrell MacDonald; and Fox's 1929 film Why Leave Home?, directed by Raymond Cannon and starring Sue Carol and Nick Stuart (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1921-30; F2.1069 and F2.6336).
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1943
Released in United States 1943
